Random stuff from this week

(just a random entry about hanging out with Priscilla and the girls this week)

Priscilla came over Monday night with pizza and Starbucks.  (Now THAT is a friend.)
Super Nanny is WAY more fun to watch when you have someone who is a LOT like you who you can sit and make snarky comments with, then feel self-righteous about how great a parent you are.  (I'm mostly kidding about that -- we do think we do a pretty good job, but we both know that we screw up on occasion or are too lazy about certain things.  And we actually talk a lot about what we see on the show, like why certain things work with kids or realize things we ARE doing wrong and maybe need to think about . . . or that we are OK with the fact that we "do it wrong" and we don't care to fix it.  heh.)

As usual, Jake and Elauna ran around together and amused each other.  They're so good at sharing toys and not fighting.  Sometimes I have to intervene -- especially when E wants to hold one of Jake's puppies.  I have to say "Let's let her hold it for a little bit, then she'll give it back," or "if you don't want her to have that, find something to trade her for it."  Aowyn was playing on the floor on a blanket and Jake found a baby toy in the toybox (he totally understands which toys are his old baby toys.)  He brought it over and put it on the blanket for her and I might have praised him a little too enthusiastically for being so nice, because then he ran back and forth from the toybox to A's blanket and kept sitting toys down next to her to play with.  I tried to tell him that A really only needed a few toys, but he wanted to share EVERYTHING he could fine.  P and I were laughing so hard at him, it was hard to tell him to stop.  I think I finally redirected him to something else to get him to stop.

Jake is also trying to overcome fears/uneasiness with things by being brave and touching them.  He's scared to death of vacuum cleaners (always has been, but it doesn't help that mom calls it the "big bad machine" and uses it as a tool to make him behave and clean up -- "if you spill all your food/don't clean up, I'll have to get out the big bad machine."  heh.  I can't decide if it's a good or bad way to encourage him to behave.)  So we had the vacuum cleaner sitting in the living room (on the few days I vacuum, I'm too lazy to put it away) and Jake stood next to it, looking scared.  I said "Are you gonna be brave?  Do you want to touch it?  It won't hurt you."  He looked at me for a minute, then inched closer and touched it for half a second, then came running to me.  I told him good job, then he got one of his puppy-dogs, walked over, and let the puppy touch it.  (He really has an imagination letting his puppies do things -- he gives them "drinks" from his cup, pretends they're eating out of his empty hand and then says "food! . . . mmmm.")

So when I was holding Aowyn, Jake was a little frustrated because I was holding her and not paying attention to him -- but he was off playing with Elauna!  It would just occur to him from time to time that mommy was holding another baby (God forbid.)  So he climbed up next to me on the couch and said "all done.  all done."  (i.e. "Mommy you are done holding that baby, now hold me.")  And I said "No, I'm not done holding the baby.  We love the baby.  Do you want to touch her?" and I took his hand and put it on her foot, then helped him pat her back.  He got a big smile on his face and got back down to play.  Jake's slowly coming around to liking A.  Right now all he knows (which we've taught him since E was an infant and he wasn't even 1) is that babies are special and we have to be VERY careful around them and never step on them or hurt them.  Jake always wants to get his old pacifier (which I kept on my scrapbooking hutch as a momento) and put it in A's mouth.  His heart's in the right place.

P and the girls came over Thurs. night, too -- she had been home all day and just wanted to get out, so she waited until Lou was leaving for work -- and she brought Starbucks and chocolate cake.  YUM!  Jake had already fallen asleep (it was 9:30 and he hadn't had a nap that day) and Elauna was so heartbroken that he wasn't going to play with her.  He was laying on the couch and she kept looking at him and trying to talk to him, but he was OUT.  She finally just went and played by herself, while I held the baby and P and I talked about how absurd the people on The Apprentice are.  They stayed until past 11 (we're like college students, staying up all night and not thinking about the next day.  We always do that.  And I wonder why I'm always tired?)

Oh, we also talked about my scrapbooking -- I had just gotten a new magazine and was showing it to her.  She said "Hey, you should get your pages in here, they're as good as these."  She said it so naively, like "just tell them and they'll print them."  I had to explain to her that it's HARD to get published in a SB mag because there's so much competition and even if you're good you have to be extremely lucky to get noticed -- but that right now there's an open call for pages for an upcoming book that I think I may be able to do.  And I can submit as many as I want, so I can scrap like there's no tomorrow until March 21st and maybe 1 of 20 page LOs (or however many I can get done and still have them all good and not just thrown together) will be picked.  And I told her that some of the best pages I ever do are of her girls, but when I'm published for the first time, I want it to be of Jake.  She said "But I want the girls to be in a magazine, too!"  LOL.  I think I've found a solution -- I'm going to do some pages about Jake and Elauna's friendship with pics of both of them, and maybe one of those will get picked?

I'll close with one thought: a taste of Heaven here on Earth is a 5 month old DARLING baby laughing and grabbing your face and giving you big open-mouthed kisses again and again.  I was laughing so hard and my cheeks were covered in baby slobber, but I just didn't care.  I don't want Aowyn to ever grow up!!!

Comments

[Kate]

You know, Jake may never outgrow the fear of the vacuum. Not to be discouraging, but I have a 28-year old sister who is deathly afraid of vacuums. No kidding- if you run the vacuum up by her, she starts crying and shreiking. No joke. She's freakin' 28-years old, in the Army, survived a tour in Iraq, but she's afraid of a Hoover. Go figure. (She'd so kick my ass for telling people that.)

[Sue]

Those evenings with P & the kids sound like fun! The Starbucks & choccy cake sound even better. You're lucky to have a wonderful friend with kids that Jake can play with and grow up with.

So am I your 1000th commenter??!

[Ushka]

This was so interesting to read as I have a late-speaking child. How is Jake's speaking progressing now?

[Jen_Jake'smom]

hi! thanks for this question!

Jake is doing WONDERFULLY now. (9 months after I wrote this entry.) his speech has just exploded over the summer and the fall. my biggest questions to myself when I was trying to decide if he needed a professional evaluation were (1) is he making progress every week? are we moving forward? (2) does he understand what I am saying to him and can he follow those directions, and (3) does he FIND a way to communicate his needs to me, even though it might not be in complete sentences? and every week my answer to all of those questions was yes. Plus the fact that he is truly excelling in things like putting together puzzles, learning to use the computer on his own, recognising numbers, letters, and small words. Those things made me realize that a speech "delay" wasn't necessarily indicative of bigger problems or other developmental delays.

Right now the biggest issues I have with his speech are getting him to speak more CLEARLY, and to not be so shy with friends and family. Pretty much anyone aside from a select 10 people in his life just don't hear him talk because he's so shy! (Which, as an outgoing person, makes me insane!)

thanks for your comment!

jen